Playing With Fire
by PacoTheAwkoTaco
Summary: Olivia Madsen hates Haven. She hates being Troubled, she hates the weather, and she really hates her nieghbors. So she acts out, does what she wants. She is the rebel that rides solo and doesnt appreciate her hard working mother. And the last time she ran out of one of their mother-daughter fights, her mother was murdered while Liv was away. On a mission for revenge and to give th


I squirmed in a seat that was eerily damp, involuntarily wondering what could permanently soak a chair in a way where it would never be comfortable again. The possibilities were genuinely frightening. Maybe the person before me peed, and smiled evilly at the thought of a poor person having to sit in it after them, or a pregnant lady had a baby in this ugly seat and didn't have anybody clean it up. Or maybe someone had just spilled water on it. But I was still convinced it was some kind of fluid other than h2o. Some fluid that created my personal puddle. A warm, more-likely-than-not-butt juice puddle. I averted my thoughts back to the chair, because I was starting to physically cringe.

It was hard and made squirting noises when I moved, which only grew to my discomfort and my neighbor's. He was awaiting his friend's bail, and he had to listen to what sounded like a girl with a bowel problem make what sounded like watery farts. I pitied him, actually. I wouldn't want to sit next to me, either.

I stopped moving and just stared at my hands, fingers laced and hanging gently over a linoleum tile floor, silver disks of bracelet-like handcuffs adorning them. All this over a pack of gum. Where was my pride? It wasn't even the good kind.

It was all a misunderstanding, really. I didn't actually take it. Kalli did. Which explains why it wasn't the good kind. But I knew my mom wouldn't see it that way.

No parent would if their kid was arrested. And may I just say that Haven PD had nothing better to do than arrest a girl who supposedly stole a pack of chewable minty freshness? In my opinion, that's almost as dumb as getting arrested for loitering. Hell, I must've been score of the month for the small time detectives who did nothing but pick their nose all day.

I think I laughed at my own thought, because the guy next to me just closed his eyes real slow like he could barely take sitting in my presence. I shrugged. I didn't wake up to impress anybody today. Especially not the frumpled and dirty haired guy that made up my only company.

He had smiled at me at first, assuming that I was safer than the biker guy in the corner who was here upon my neighbor's entrance until he was shoved into the Big Time detective part of the Police Department.

We tried at conversation, but that was before the alleged farts. Then he just kind of looked like he preferred anywhere else to sit but didn't want to be rude.

Well, At least he thought I was a Gassy Gertie and not a sadistic inmate. Or a Trouble. Small blessings, I thought. Small blessings. He would be probably the only one to think I was innocent as far as tonight went. He probably guessed it wasn't me, because I was too stupid and obnoxious to do anything seriously wrong.

This time, I intentionally squirted around in my chair. Let's keep that annoyance coming, dude. You are my only entertainment.

The clock above the doors was ticking its way towards nine o' clock, in a dull resounding note, when my mom came in, angrier than a bull with it's underwear on backwards.

Damn. I even thought like a homeschooled girl from Maine. I'd have to work on that.

Her blue grey eyes were in turmoil, and had a feverish churning of anger in them. But on the outside, my mom was calm, like a smooth sheet of glass. About one second away from an explosion. Calm Mom was almost scarier than yelling mom. Like the one time I burned down the garage and she was silent for three days. My face twisted into a scowl at the thought.I was suddenly unhappy my awkward situation had dissipated.

"I'm here for Olivia Madsen." My mother said slowly to the lady who sat in the booth by the door. If I were to take a wild guess, I would say that Desk Woman had received the same wilting kill-joy of a look I had, because wariness edged her face as soon as she looked into those cold and furious eyes.

"She's over there," The shaking woman said in reply. When I walked in I saw her, sassy and speaking ghetto on the phone to some friend like she was the baddest bitch in da hood (god, I am so white). If my mother shook that woman up, I was in for a hell of a ride.

"I know where she is. I saw her. Is there anything else I have to do? Sign anything?"

Uh-oh. She had already seen me. I secretly hoped that tree wilting glare was to peel the paint and not to demoralize me. I tried to focus on something else. The polished EVERYTHING because the clean-up guy had a lot of time on his hands, the busy (haha, not) cops sitting around and answering a phone call every once in a grand while. My gaze fell back to Older Me yelling at the poor desk lady demanding why there was so much damn papers to fill out for a $100 bail.

"You're Olivia Madsen, aren't you?" The guy next to me suddenly asked, successfully drawing my attention away from my doom thoughts. I looked over at him with one raised brow. I guess he hadn't fully given up on me and my conversation. He smiled weakly like he was straining for a chance to do something other than listen to the annoying janitor hum while he mopped the same place forty five times.

"Yeah. How do you know?" I humored him.

"One," He smiled and ticked the options off on his fingers like he finally had a purpose. "You look terrified. Like you are gonna shit yourself, and two, there isn't anyone else here except for Daryll."

Since I clearly had no clue who that was,so he put in, "My friend."

My mouth made an 'O' as realization dawned on me."Good points." I replied. I fiddled with my jacket collar through my cuffs and uneasily tapped my foot. This talk wasn't really distracting me as much as I'd hoped.

"Is that your mom?" He asked, still bothering me. Much more so than a second ago. I squished on purpose again and pulled and uncomfy expression.

That didn't really work. I had a feeling that he had made peace with my 'gas'.

So I tried my mother's famous Wolf Stare on for size and looked at him instead. "Yes. Yes it is."

Grungy guy paused.

"You're gonna die, aren't you, Olivia?" The stranger asked with a ghost of a smile on his face. Glad my painful death will be amusing for you, asshole.

"Yes. Yes I am."

[TIME PASSES BECAUSE I CANT GET THE DAMN THING TO WORK D:]

Mom didn't say anything on the way home. Or the way up the path, or unlocking the door. But as soon as we closed the barrier to our threshold...the war began.

Once again, like almost every other day of every month of every year that made up my teenage life, I was disagreeing with my mom. She was leaning over the counter at me, seething. She was quick to a temper(as she had a right to be), much like me, and was quick witted in a battle of words.

"Shoplifting? Liv!" She shouted, making wild hand gestures to concede her point.

"Mom," I gritted back. "It's not even that bad."

Her dark hair flew down her shoulders in ribbons as she leaned forward to look me dead in the eyes."It is that bad!"

I shook my head, my temper injecting it's thrum into my bloodstream. I was so mad, but I didn't even know why. I guess it was the inherited temper, because when we were boiled, mom and I were the same person. "Not as bad as the time I burned down Payless!" reminded her.

Bad move. She bubbled over at that memory. It had taken forever to convince everyone that I was not an arsonist and that it 'flammable in-store socks'' that caused the fire, not me. "From now on, I need to know where you are at all times. No exceptions."

I huffed angrily."You cannot control where I am all twenty four hours of the day, you need to let me make my own bad choices." I threw my hands up in a similar motion as my mom did. "You are so overprotective!"

She moved around from the kitchen and into the living room towards me, looking vastly intimidating in her jeans and faded red tee shirt. My mom had come to get me from work, which was actually the house. She was an author of a rapidly growing series, and things seemed to be looking up for her until now. The shirt was dad's, and when she wore it, she expected a good day. And when she didnt get one, she was even more prone to rage than on regular bad days. I didn't realize until now how screwed I was.

Her eyes flared, and she gave me a well earned glower. "I can be over protective when I just picked you up from the police station, Olivia!"

My mother only called me Olivia when she was angry and was thinking I was an irresponsible, unruly child. "Well, Mother, if you didn't hide my skateboard I might've not been mad enough to shoplift!"I shot back, my eyes equally blue-grey and equally angry as hers. I only called her Mother when I thought she was being an annoying thorn in my ass, and she knew it too. What she didn't know was that I didn't even steal anything, but felt the need to defend Kalli as if it was me and not her.

"Don't you 'mother' me!"

"Then don't you 'Olivia' me!"

Mom was going to throw something according to the tide turning in her eyes. She started banging things around, putting them back into place and stomping everywhere like a tiny child...just like me when I was mad.

"We are going to talk, young lady. You cant just run around getting into trouble. You think its easy for me to keep bailing you out?" Spat Laney Madsen.

I wondered somewhere far back in my head why whenever parents were mad they called their daughters 'young lady'. That was before I realized I had to reply.

I rolled my eyes like a teenager who knew she was wrong but would never admit it.. "Oh, here we go. The 'things aren't easy for me' speech! Bail in Haven is like my allowance money. Get off my back!"

She started to speak, but cut herself off with a different sentence and allowing the unfinished one die in the void of uncompleted thoughts when she realized I wasn't listening. "You're gonna hear it - Olivia! Come back here! I'm not finished with you!"

I had begun my ascent of the stairs, and I wasn't stopping for much. Except maybe ice cream later.

I didn't even turn back to look at her. "Well, I'm finished with you! If you weren't around, I'd be my own person, be free to make my own decisions, even if they land me in jail!"

"If keeping my only child under the radar makes me the bad guy, I will be the bad guy! People will start to notice that some of the things you do don't make sense. People don't want the Troubles back in town, and if you're in the wrong place with people who want to hurt you, I can't help!"

I turned back, my eyes narrowing into a look as black as my hair. "Maybe I don't want your help!"

Her face clouded, and she frowned a little bit. Almost all my life, I had needed my mother. Whether it was for homework or to catch the pretty butterfly that flapped its orange wings gracefully away from me. I had almost always wanted her to help me with this or that. And I had just told her I didn't need her anymore. And she was hurt.

"Fine, Olivia. Why don't you go ask your father, the one who left because he couldn't put up with you!"

I took one more look at her, walked down the stairs and scooped up my bag on the way out the door.

And my mother didn't try to stop me.

**A/N: Hey there, reader :) I just wanted to apologize for the cut off summary and short chapter. I didnt have too much time to write this, so I tried my best. Here is the real summary:**

**Olivia Madsen hates Haven. She hates being Troubled, she hates the weather, and she really hates her nieghbors. So she acts out, does what she wants. She is the rebel that rides solo and doesnt appreciate her hard working mother. And the last time she ran out of one of their mother-daughter fights, her mother was murdered while Liv was away.**

**On a mission for revenge and to give the killer a taste of his own medicine, she is thrown into a full fledged mystery on who is killing Troubles for their the only people who seem to want to help her in the entire blasted town is the bartender at the Grey Gull and a few other delinquents.**


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